Ein Teelöffel Land und Meer

by Dina Nayeri

Saba ist elf Jahre alt, als zwei einschneidende Ereignisse ihr Leben verändern. Die Islamische Revolution zwingt Sabas wohlhabende christliche Familie dazu, Teheran zu verlassen und sich fern von den prüfenden Blicken der Mullahs auf ihre Ländereien in der Gilan-Provinz zurückzuziehen. Kurz darauf verschwinden ihre Mutter und ihre Zwillingsschwester Mahtab spurlos. Ihr Vater und die Nachbarn im Dorf behaupten, Mahtab sei bei einem nächtlichen Bad im Kaspischen Meer ertrunken und die Mutter sei bei dem Versuch, den Iran zu verlassen, festgenommen worden. Doch Saba glaubt an eine ganz andere Geschichte: Immer wieder erzählt sie ihrer besten Freundin Ponneh und dem Jungen Reza, den sie liebt, Episoden aus dem filmreifen Leben, das die beiden Vermissten inzwischen in den USA führen.
Als Saba erwachsen wird, muss sie sich jedoch immer drängenderen Fragen stellen: Was ist Wahrheit und was ist Lüge? Darf Liebe ein Grund sein, sich selbst zu verleugnen? Und wann ist es an der Zeit, eigene Entscheidungen zu treffen und sein Schicksal in die Hand zu nehmen?

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Iran, Middle East, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction

522 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Dina Nayeri is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard Business School, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. She spends her time in New York and Iowa City.

Reviews

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, it's my book, so I'll go ahead and give it a five :)
But I do hope you enjoy it! And I hope you'll write to me and let me know what you think. My email address is on my website (www.dinanayeri.com).
xxDina

[Marie-Paule · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you cope with the knowledge that you have a responsibility in your sister's death? And in the disappearance of your mother? This beautiful book tells about the tremendous power of daydreaming, pretending it all didn't happen, replacing the truth with far better fantasies. A very powerful coming-of-age tale...
Yet this book is so much more. It tells you about everyday life in postrevolutionary Iran. How do you survive in a religious totalitarian state, where everything is forbidden, and where there are no clear rules, especially for women? How do people survive in such cruel conditions? And is it a coincidence that the women in this book are much more braver than men ?
And last, what gives this book its lustre, is the Persian art of storytelling. Read and enjoy!

[Jaime Boler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1981, eleven-year-old Saba Hafezi shows her best friend, Ponneh, an issue of Life Magazine dated January 22, 1971. The young Iranian girls look at the pages, featuring a newly-engaged Tricia Nixon, in awe. “Ta-ree-sha Nik-soon,” Saba says, is “the daughter of the American Shah.”

As far as the two girls are concerned, Ms. Nixon’s world is straight out of a fairy tale. “She is a princess. Shahzadeh Nixon.” Saba soaks up the four-page magazine spread of the smiling young woman and her beau, Ed Cox. For Saba, the main character in Dina Nayeri’s breathtakingly beautiful debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, the daughter of the American president is vibrant and mysterious, and she is, above all, American. Saba is enamored of everything American. And it’s very easy to understand why—post-revolutionary Iran is no place for a girl to grow up in.

Overnight, or at least it seemed so to Saba, the “pro-scarf people” overthrew the “pro-hair government.” Just like that, the things Saba loves—nail polish, shorts, bare arms in summer, new music—are forbidden. Every part of Saba’s body must be covered. Nayeri writes, “They [the new government] shut up beautiful things in dark places, so no one can see…What do you do when you want to douse a fire? You throw a big, heavy cloth over it, deprive it of oxygen.” That is exactly what the Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters do to Iranian women.

But, in the summer of 1981, Saba does not yet care about all that. Her concern is Mahtab. Without her twin sister, Saba feels like an important piece of her body and her soul is missing. What really happened to Mahtab, and to their mother, who disappeared the same day, is a mystery to Saba.

Saba cannot remember much about that day; everything is “muddled memories within memories.” She recalls feeling dizzy, and her head ached. It had hurt ever since “that night on the beach,” but she is oblivious as to what occurred or how she injured herself. Saba is clear about one thing: she thought they were all going to take a plane to America, her mother, her sister, and herself. Her father was to stay behind for the time being.

That was not to be. As Nayeri wisely maintains“memory plays such cruel tricks on the mind.” Saba can only recall seeing a woman dressed similarly to her mother, holding the hand of a little girl who looked just like Mahtab, getting onto an airplane to America.

Just like that, they vanish out of Saba’s life forever. Nothing can fill the void of her twin, not Ponneh, not her father, and not even Reza, a boy she has a crush on.

Because Iranians believe that “all of life is written in the blood” and that twins must share the same fate, Saba believes that everything she experiences and endures her twin must also face and live through. Thus, Saba imagines her sister’s life in America.

America, or at least the America that exists in her mind, captivates Saba. She comes up with elaborate tales in which Mahtab confronts a problem or learns a lesson that Saba has recently tackled. Since Saba is so obsessed with American television (Family Ties, Growing Pains, The Wonder Years, and The Cosby Show—all family dramas), each episode of Mahtab’s life lasts no longer than 22.5 minutes, the average length of a 30-minute TV show, minus the commercials. These chapters help Saba feel closer to her sister, who is surely “conquering the world so many scoops of a teaspoon away.”

Since Saba herself cannot attend a prestigious university (she will marry instead), Mahtab gets accepted into the very best American institution of higher learning—Harvard. Nayeri expertly personifies Harvard University—“Baba” Harvard. The university becomes Mahtab’s father since Mahtab’s true father is absent. Baba Harvard is kind, comforting, stern when necessary, and paternalistic.

Saba holds onto the hope that her sister is living the American dream, an Iranian Tricia Nixon, even though those around her insist her sister’s fate lies elsewhere. Saba knows this, too. Yet Iranians place a high value on the art of storytelling. “At the end of every tale, Nayeri explains in her story, “the storyteller is required to do the truth-and-lies poem, the one that rhymes ‘yogurt’ and ‘yogurt soda’ (maast and doogh) with ‘truth’ and ‘lies’ (raast and doroogh).” Lying “well is crucial” in Iran, but Saba must stop lying to herself if she is to have a life of her own.

This story is very personal for Nayeri. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is Nayeri’s own dream of Iran, “created from a distance just as Saba invents a dreamed-up America for her sister.” Saba “longs to visit the America on television” just as strongly as Nayeri longs “to visit an Iran that has now disappeared.” A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is Nayeri’s very “own Mahtab dream.”

What a dream Nayeri has invented for us. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea effectively transports the reader to post-revolutionary Iran and into this small village. Nayeri’s passion and elegance are visible throughout her tale as she explores themes such as love, loss, friendship, family, identity, and memory. Most of all, she illustrates how stories have the power to transform our lives.

[Imi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea would be an exploration of the relationship of twin sisters and the grief of losing one another. The idea of a young Iranian girl coping with her grief through her imagination and stories, after her twin sister, Mahtab, and her mother supposedly disappear, intrigued me. Saba invents stories about her sister's life in America, believing that being a twin must mean her sister is alive and that lives will remain linked, no matter how much earth and sea separates them.

Unfortunately, this plot seems to have been more of a sub-plot, never the main focus of the narrative as a whole. Even worse, I can't work out what was the focus of the novel. It's more like Nayeri had several different ideas and plots in mind, and instead of focussing on one, she combined all of them into one novel. The only way all these different sub-plots are linked together is that they are vaguely related to Saba. And none of them were strong enough the carry the whole novel. I can't help thinking that Nayeri should have chosen one relationship and plot to focus on.

I wish that relationship was Saba and Mahtab's, which we learn very little about. As it is Mahtab is nothing more than a plot device. Mahtab's fantastical parallel life is so obviously untrue, that there is no real faith behind it. It's clear to everyone (including Saba, I think) right from the start know that Mahtab is long dead. These sequences are superficial and also feel overly long. They drag and I found myself wanting to skim them, because they revealed nothing about Saba, her grief process or the development of the plot, especially when she's started her adult life and so much else happens to her. It's inconceivable that she would continue to believe in this elaborate fantasy for so long.

Even though I felt the novel failed to explore the relationships of the characters, there was still another seemingly important theme: the conflict of a wealthy Christian family attempting to live in rural Islamic village in post-revolutionary Iran. Unfortunately, this was another theme I felt wasn't sufficiently explored. Sure, there was the initial disappearance of the mother (which may or may not have been related to her religion), the difficulties of women living in a highly patriarchal society, two horrific assaults, and an execution of a character Saba has never even met, but other than that village life barely changes after the revolution and the Christian family seems to face surprisingly little resistance from the rest of the villagers. It's like the author suddenly realised the family had it too easy, so added in the assaults/execution to add to the conflict of this theme, and then went back to focussing on other themes. In fact, Nayeri even mentions in the author's note at the end that it would be "uncommon" to have "a prominent Christian family living mostly unbothered in a village" in Iran, but that she chose to ignore these "details". I don't really understand why she would have decided it important to make the family Christian, if she wasn't interested in exploring this theme? This is another side of the novel that felt unfinished.

I'm sadly left feeling this was an unremarkable read that didn't realise it's potential. Perhaps if Nayeri had tried to find more of a focus, then the novel would have felt more complete.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iran, before the revolution when woman had some freedom, could attend school and many other liberties that we here in the states take for granted and after with the Mullahs and the morality police, all liberties and freedoms taken away. This is the setting for this novel, it is the story of two twin girls, their family and their neighbors and friends. When one of the twins believes her mother and sister have left for America, leaving her and her father behind, she invents stories about her sister and how her sisters life in America is playing out. Loving all things from this country, the music, the TV shows and the books, she learns as many English words as she can in the hope that one day she can go and find her sister and mother. The stories about the sister was an interesting literary device but I felt that these stories tended to go on much to often, and although I do understand the meaning behind them I feel I still would have understood if they had been shorter. I found myself skimming them. Of course life never turns out the way we plan and such was the case in this novel. I did finish this book with a pretty decent understanding of this country and its treatment of women, the story and the mystery of what really happened to her sister and mother definitely pulled me in. The characters were well rounded and I came away with the feeling that I knew them and wanted things to go well for them. This was a good book, excellent in many ways and I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sentimental and heart wrenching saga that attests to the value of imagination and love. We see how bonds and stories so often save us in the darkest of times, and how every accomplishment, every journey, every step towards healing, starts with a dream, a song, a memory. As a twin myself this story hit me hard.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in a fictional village near the Caspian sea in Iran, this novel clearly shows the differences between Pre-Shah Iran and Post-Shah Iran, especially related to the life of teenage girl Saba, her friends Reza and Ponneh, the rest of her neighbours, her Maman, Baba and sister Mahtab.

Her family being torn apart when she was still a kid, Saba grows up surrounded by old gossiping women and prejudices against her sex. However hard her childhood and teenage seem to be, she always finds relief in the letters she allegedly receives from her twin sister, her smuggled music cassettes and her old American magazines.

Saba believes, considering every adventure Mahtab lives, that there is eventually a way to improve her life, to reach her dreams and live the life she's always wanted.

That way, this novel is amazing and very empowering, since it shows in a clear way how much women could and can overcome to reach their final destinations, if they really want to do so. However I cannot say this is a feminist novel, but still a very good read for people who want to know a bit more about women's lives in other societies and different cultures.

[Faye* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kurzer Disclaimer zu Beginn: Das war praktisch mein erster Kontakt mit der iranischen Kultur, ich kann daher nicht beurteilen wie authentisch die Erzählungen der Autorin sind.
Ich fand die Geschichte jedenfalls extrem gut und schnell zu lesen, die Details zum Leben, den Sitten und der Geschichte des Landes waren für mich faszinierend und wahnsinnig interessant; und die eigentliche Geschichte war ebenso fesselnd. Würde ich definitiv weiterempfehlen.

3,75 Sterne

[Lisa Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from the Library Thing early reviewers program. This is just the sort of book that I would expect to absolutely love. Set in Iran in the 1980's, it is about a twin who loses her mother and sister, and is grappling with having been raised to be open-minded even though she is stuck in the restrictive Iranian culture. This book is beautifully written and absolutely transports you into the world of 1980's Iran. It was an easy but rich read and the author is obviously extremely talented. Honestly, I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't enjoy it. Possibly it is just my own intense reaction to the paternalistic culture of Iran, but also it could be that I just didn't like the characters. It annoyed me that Saba kept insisting that her sister was alive, even though from the first pages (this isn't a spoiler) it's pretty clear that she's not. It was an inventive way for her to live out her fantasies, though, so it's a clever literary tool. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you should probably read this one for yourself and be the judge. I can't tell you my resistance, but it does have all the makings of a fine novel.

[Keren · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, Dina Nayeri dreams of life in Iran and what her life might have been like had she come of age in a small village in the North of that country. Her well-researched imaginings paint an Iran in all of its contrasts: its freedoms and restrictions, its comforts and dangers, its richness and its lack. It's a beautiful, heart-rending and heart-warming story that explores the chasing and making of life after tragic losses, the ways family, both blood and made, help us to seek and find our truth and our joy. I was engrossed in these lives and in this world, and closing the back cover leaves me slowly awakening to this life once again.

[Angie Fanset · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book surprised me in that I expected to like it, really wanted to like it, but I just didn't. I did not find any of the characters likable, and that's a must in order for me to enjoy a story. The telling was very disjointed and too drawn out for me. The author reveals something at the beginning that, in my opinion, ruins the rest of the story, but I know what she was trying to do. I did enjoy learning about the Iranian culture pre- and post-revolution.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving journey about a young girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and coming face to face with drastic cultural and social changes. Told through weaving prose and a believable voice, the narrative is similar to that of other fictional texts written about immigrant life, identity, and struggles. So not unlike the works of Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The story is about young twin girls Saba and Mahtab Hafezi growing up in a fictional farming village in Iran. The girls have a special hobby which is forbidden under the new regime: they love to collect American pop culture and basically everything American. They clip magazine articles about life in America, secretly watch American sit-coms and movies, listen to rock music, and make up stories about how great it would be if they lived in America, instead of where they are now. They dream of a life in which they don't have to live in hiding, the life they had before the revolution. In reality, under the new regime, life is difficult for everyone, but especially for women and girls.

One day, Saba and Mahtab, along with their mother, are separated. Saba stays behind with their father. She doesn't remember much about that day or what happened afterward, and so she assumes her mother and sister must have gone to America and that she and her father will join them at a later time. During the separation, to escape from her day to day life, Saba imagines Mahtab living the life they'd always dreamed of somewhere in Middle America and doing normal average American things, like have friends, hang out with her friends, go to school, etc. Basically all the things Saba could not do in Iran. These daydreams and wishes keep her going, she believes, until the day she and Mahtab are reunited.

We've all read one too many of these fictional semi-autobiographical narratives to know that these stories, what with an oppressive regime looming in the background, don't end well. So I will only say that Saba does get to go to America later on in the story, and she comes face to face with the reality of an America she never expected. To say any more would spoil the later parts of the book.

The focus on America and Americana might turn some people away from this story. Saba and Mahtab put everything American on a pedestal, and their obsession does become grating after a while. But due to their current circumstances, it's understandable that they would put America, as shown on the media, in place of their escapism. Fictional America is a shining beacon of assumed freedom compared to the Khomeini government, whose intent was/is to crack down on Western influence and return Iran to an extremely conservative way of life.

A reader who's having a hard time with this book should keep in mind that America, or the ideal image of America, seen through the eyes of an immigrant is vastly different from the America as seen by the people who live here.

Those turned off by Americana might want to tune back in because every day life in Iran, both before and after the revolution, is written beautifully and described in specific tangible details. The author Dina Nayeri is an Iranian immigrant, and much of content of this book is taken from her own life and experiences. She is influenced by both American and Persian music, so both are featured a lot throughout the story. It's a good balance, and I find that the music enhances the events in the story. It's like having an author-selected soundtrack to go along with the journey. Speak of which, an author-selected list of songs can be found here.

There are a couple of quotes I'd like to add, which I will as soon as I get the book back from a friend, assuming she isn't going to keep it or lend it to another friend.


Full review is posted here by request. Originally posted at Wordpress and Booklikes.

— — — — —

I'd like to thank Heather Kirkpatrick of Riverhead Books and Will Martin of the Penguin Group for sending me a copy.

[Rudi Landmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is nothing if not ambitious. It traces the story of an Iranian girl growing up in a rural town not long after the Islamic Revolution. Separated from her twin sister, Saba invents intricate fantasies about her having escaped to America with their mother and what her life must be like there. The events of the novel span around a decade as she grows up, marries, and eventually confronts her fantasy life.

I was attracted to this book mostly because I was interested in its depiction of separation and loss and its central character’s unusual response to them. Unfortunately, it didn’t really deliver anything interesting or insightful to me. Part of the problem was that I never really warmed to Saba as a character. Although I don’t demand a protagonist whom I like, it certainly helps, and most especially so in a book that explores the inner life of that character. I found Saba to be self-absorbed and unsympathetic. The only time I really felt anything for her was during the relation of one particularly horrific assault. Even then, my empathy was the empathy I hope I would feel for anyone in a horrible situation; it was nothing specific to this unlikeable character.

The fantasy sequences seemed over-long and superficial; they didn't incrementally reveal anything more to me about Saba or how she saw herself or her world. This was a pity, because it’s why I was reading it in the first place (and had sold the book club of which I’m a member on reading it as our book of the month!) Even Saba’s eventual confrontation and deconstruction of these fantasies isn’t as climactic as I felt it should be; they just peter out in importance.

Without the interesting psychological pieces, surely there’s still something interesting to say about women’s lives in post-revolutionary Iran, right? But even here, I felt the novel fell short.

Saba’s family is rich enough and influential enough that she is spared much unwanted attention. I never had the feeling that she was inhibited or prevented from doing pretty much what she wanted to do at almost every point of the narrative. Incredibly, in an afterword, the author even deliberately glosses over an interesting source of cultural clash: that she was depicting a Christian family in rural Iran during this era. She acknowledges that this was something quite unusual, but then says that she just didn’t want to explore those issues in the novel. So why even put it there?

The novel features a reasonably large supporting cast too, but I found that few had distinctive voices; they were mostly interchangeable to me. In general, Nayeri’s prose didn’t wow me, but I thought it was mostly serviceable for the story that she was telling.

It’s certainly an ambitious book, especially for a first novel, and I was left feeling that it had been too ambitious for its author. I didn’t think that A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea was terrible, so much as I thought that its potential was never realised.

[Lama Sh A · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is a novel which revolves around Iran before and after the revolution. I'm so delightful to announce that Nayeri succeeds in portraying Iran with plentiful of images of its Caspian sea, its splendid villages and cities, and its storytellers.

The Islamic revolution has brought many changes to the lives of the Iranians. Some, however, are still unwilling to compromise and accept these changes. Saba, the main character of the novel, is one of these people. Throughout the story, she, persistently, attempts to bypass the laws that the revolutionaries have imposed upon the lives of the Iranians. That is, Saba has always loved to read foreign books, which, are now banned in Iran. Also, her favorite movies, are illegal foreign ones. She, even, secretly smokes and drinks, and enjoys the smallest pleasures that were accepted before the revolution.

Saba, also, emphasizes the rigid laws that have been forced on the Iranian women. After the revolution, they were obliged to cover themselves from head to toe. They, even, are not allowed to wear something that is colorful, for fear it reveals their feminine characteristics. In other words, they are only allowed to wear black "chadors". Black chadors, for me, only overcast upon the Iranian women the gloomy state they are being subjected to. However, some of these women, like Saba, do not condescend to these laws. They break them by wearing a red shoe, or something that is colorful which is hidden by these black chadors. But, if they were ever been caught by one of the "moral police", they would be hit by them just exactly what happened to Saba's childhood friend, Ponneh.

Despite the danger that Saba puts herself in, she continues to rebel against the Islamic laws. The fact that Saba descends from a rich family, makes part of her resistance continuous. That is, the fact that her father, who is a rich villager, is a friend of an Islamic mullah who shadows him and his family from the "moral police". However, these facts do not deny that Saba is not rebellious in her nature. On the contrary, she was born and raised on rebellious principles.

It is important to mention that the "moral police" are not even "moral". That is, it is so ironic that they, who are the ones that are supposed to sustain morality among Iranian people, are themselves immoral. Actually, this is revealed by mullah Ali, Saba's father's friend, when he visits Saba's home to enjoy the smallest pleasures by smoking hashish and opium. So, living in a society which is being ruled by corrupt government, makes the situation worse.

Moving on, Saba is not only a rebellious young lady, but also a brilliant storyteller. As a matter of fact, storytelling is in the blood of the Iranian women. Saba concocts stories about her twin sister's unknown destiny after a drowning accident in the Caspian sea. By making up stories about her sisters, she tries to revive her twin sister's existence. However, in the end, after not knowing what exactly happened to her sister after that night, and after finally achieving her dream in travelling to America, she stops telling stories about her because she wants to live her own now.

Last but not least, I congratulate every Iranian woman, and every other women around the world, and hold on their hands, for their rebellious souls and great work towards making change in the lives of the Iranians. And as Benjamin Franklin once said: "Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."


* Never give up on your dreams.
* Stop dreaming and start working for your dreams.
* Love does not always win.
* If love does not offer you its wings of comforts, leave.
* Sacrifice for the sake of whom you love.
* Be there in time of need.
* Only die for someone who at least has a fever for you.

[Renae · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, debut novelist Dina Nayeri delivers a complex and haunting story about a girl with too much imagination, and about the small village she grew up in. Nayeri’s story is masterfully crafted; this is the sort of book that one can contemplate and re-read any number of times, and as I read the final sentence, I was left with a feeling of completion and rightness.

The novel opens in 1981 on the fateful day Saba’s sister and mother disappeared at the Tehran airport. A few brief chapters discuss Saba’s girlhood in the 80’s, sneaking alcohol with her friends, hiding her non-Muslim religion, fantasizing about Tricia Nixon and Harvard-educated princes. The majority of the story, however, takes place in the 90’s, following Saba’s difficult, daydream-filled adulthood as she fumbles through life, too wrapped up in her imagination and stories about her sister’s life in the United States to devote herself to truly living.

As a character, I found Saba to be hard to engage with, but endlessly intriguing. She is a young woman very much trapped inside her own head, rehashing memories of what happened in 1981 until she doesn’t know what’s true and not true. Her life, externally, seems rather aimless, and in most ways it was. Living as a non-devout woman in post-Revolutionary Iran is hardly a fun time, and though Saba and her two best friends have fun, it’s not unrestricted fun, and it’s not freedom. Saba finds freedom in creating and telling stories of what she imagines her sister’s life in the US is like—for the most part, Saba’s existence is a vicarious one.

Set alongside Saba’s dreamy, often slow-paced narration, Nayeri inserts statements from the three village matrons who helped raise Saba. Known as the somewhat affectionately as the Three Witches by Saba, these three outside perspectives help keep the reader from falling too deeply beneath the hypnotic spell of Saba’s stories. The reader knows what is real where at times Saba does not, and that, I think, is why A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea succeeds so massively. Because Saba has no idea that she’s a bit crazy, watching her go through her days is engaging and fascinating. We hope she’ll snap out of her delusions of Michael Jackson and Harvard, but it’s not a guarantee.

Added on to the many subtle and complex levels of the plot is Dina Nayeri’s unbelievably gorgeous prose. In the first 100 pages especially, I was completely blown away by how amazing her word choice, imagery, and tone was. There a definite elegance to this novel that really stood out for me.

A unique, detailed novel,A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is not a light read easily cast aside. Nayeri’s storytelling has depth and creativity to it, and reading this book was at once enlightening and fatiguing. The unique portrait of Iran, as well as emphasis the bond between sisters, made this book a big hit for me.

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[Jessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is probably one of the most lovely well-written books I have read in quite a long time. The book revolves around the history of an Iranian young woman named Saba. When we join Saba as a child she just lost her mother and sister in a mysterious situation and while everyone tells her they are dead, she believes they escaped the post-revolution Iran and they are happy living in America without her.

The book follows this young woman on her journey as someone raised as the twin who was not as strong, not as smart, not as special. Raised by a feminist mother and Christian parents in a conservative Muslim world, Saba has trouble adjusting and fitting into a world that wants to cage and stifle her. What makes it worse, she longs for her dreams of a free and independent America where she believes her sister to reside.

That is a simplistic summary of an intricate book. Dina Nayeri's novel succeeds because of its complete relatability. Even as we learn about the pasadars, moral police, and female brutality that Saba and her best friend Ponneh witness and experience first hand, she also tells us about the family and community. Just as women as subjugated, they also come across as the strength of the community. The neighborhood women come to support and raise Saba after her mother's disappearance and though she has a father, they are the ones who navigate her through the post-revolutionary Iran. Just as we learn about the poverty we learn about the richness of the rich food and beautiful landscapes that make up Iran. Nayeri forces the reader to realize that life is complex. As much as we all would like to escape and run away from home, it is still home.

Saba's dreams and creation of another world and stories for her twin sister, is also telling. As a twin, Saba sees her sister Mahtab as her mirror image. Though she believes Mahtab to be in America, she creates images and stories that depict her sister to be living the exact life she is living in Iran, the same troubles play out in slightly different formats and in vastly different landscapes. While Mahtab has difficulties feeling like an immigrant in in America and not knowing how to live without her twin, Saba has the same issue. Raised as a rich, intelligent, liberal Christian, she always feel partly left out of the Iran she grew up in, especially without her sister. As Mahtab struggles to find independence in America, Saba struggles to make it through two messed up marriages, one which is completely void of love. Through these rules and marriages she still finds a way to revolt and find an independent voice.

The dichotomy is amazing and though this book takes place in a completely different landscape with different cultural norms, it is easy to relate to this book about belonging and leading an imaginary life and a real life. It is a fantastic novel and so well-written. Everyone should read this.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dina Nayeri is a talented and ambitious writer. Unfortunately, her first novel is somewhat unremarkable.

The story itself seemed so promising; young twins from a wealthy Iranian family are separated when one twin and their mother 'disappear', the remaining child believes they fled to America, and her 'same blood' relationship with her twin means that their lives will remain intertwined regardless of the separation and the space between them.

The story itself has many stories written in, many voices, and many relationships. But none of them is strong enough to support the novel as a whole. There is the story of the three friends, the story of the three old women, and of course there is the story of Saba and her lost twin sister. Every time one of the characters starts to tell their story, it lapses back and all you really hear is Saba's voice. As a character, Saba herself isn't particularly interesting, so she doesn't command the reader's attention. It's like Nayeri initially wrote six or seven subplots, and in her indecision to choose one strong theme she has combined the subplots without creating anything to tie them together properly. I kept wishing Nayeri had chosen one relationship to focus on, and explored that more. I wish that she had developed the life of the twin sister, Mahtab, more thoroughly and explored it as domino or a metaphor. I was left with a complete lack of caring for the outcome of any of the characters, and think that is a shame.

My other main criticism is that Saba's everyday life before and after the revolution seem almost indistinguishable from eachother. She seems 'inconvenienced' by the revolution, having to get her American videos, music, books, and beauty products at inflated prices from a Tehrani man. There is one extreme incident with the pasdars and one execution, but overall you don't get the impression that village life has changed much.
I still don't understand how the wealthy Christian Hafezi family are so easily accepted into Cheshmeh. Nayeri explains Agha Hafezi's way with the locals, but I'm not truly convinced why the locals don't stick together for their own safety.

Nayeri is a wonderful writer, and had she been able to storyboard her ideas with a good editor before starting to write, I believe she would have achieved exactly what she set out to do. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea shows great promise, but on the whole it fails to deliver.
I look forward to her second novel.

[Cindi (Utah Mom’s Life) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes there are books that just take my breath away. I often find myself reading these rare books more slowly--putting the book down right in the middle of an emotional scene so that I can think about it for awhile before I continue; lingering on a lyrical phrase or an image so real and haunting that I finally have to look away. Books filled with characters so complex and honest that surely they exist in a world beyond the pages of the books. While I'm compelled to reach the ending and gobble every word, I resist sprinting to that final page.

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri is one of these exceptional books. Saba has only vague memories of the day her mother and twin sister Mahtab flew away to America, leaving Saba behind in Iran with her father. Resisting the post-revolutionary Iran, Saba is obsessed with banned American music, movies and TV. She imagines the life of freedom Mahtab is living in America as she experiences love, heartache and the cruel barbarity of the New Iran.

That description, while technically accurate, seems not enough to invoke the emotion and power within the pages of A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea. The book captures the desires of all women throughout the world, while creating a distinctive and individual character of Saba--uniquely her own, with her own personal struggles. The supporting cast are equally important and well developed--they are people either fighting against or giving-in to their personal destinies while their lives are entangled with Saba's.

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea could be labeled as a "coming-of-age" story, yet that title alone is not enough to encompass its themes and value. It's a social commentary about the injustices against women. It's a call for each woman to be strong enough to make their own choices and reach their own dreams. In the end, it's a marvelous read about a story-teller named Saba who made her own dream come true.

[Mike Keren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't have the superlatives to describe this book. I finished it 3 days ago and it has stayed with me, haunting my dreams and occupying my waking hours. Elegantly written, this novel captures the power of imagination and fantasy to heal our psychological wounds and cope with trauma. The book's protagonist, a young Iranian girl at the start of the revolution and her twin sister are separated; she is also separated from her mother. throughout the novel you do not know if the sister is alive or dead, if she is alive is she living an immigrant's life in the US? We don't know if her mother is in prison, dead or also living an immigrant's life in America. Neither does the protagonist.
She uses imagination and fantasy to cope. She is supported by a series of substitute moms among her neighbors in rural Iran. She has a complicated relationship with her father, stressed by the secrets regarding her mother. She is surrounded by her two best friends, a young man and woman of lower social status than she, but the friendship is deep and complicated by romantic feelings as their friendship ages.
Without giving away the endings the story moves towards climactic marriages, religious violence, and an ultimate victory marked by satisfaction and victory.

[Mi Camino Blanco · Rating 2 out of 5]

La protagonista pertenece a la única familia cristiana en una población enteramente musulmana del Irán rural y tiene que enfrentarse muy joven a la desaparición de su madre y de su hermana gemela, carga que la acompaña durante toda su adolescencia y de la que se evade imaginando la vida paralela que estará experimentando su hermana en el país de las oportunidades, un Estados Unidos idealizado a través de revistas y series de tv clandestinas.

Pero esta novela promete mucho más de lo que luego ofrece . Los posibles conflictos que las circunstancias religiosas podrían acarrear apenas están desarrollados, el despertar al amor en una sociedad de matrimonios concertados también se queda un poco flojo, la amistad, los lazos entre hermanas, las formas de afrontar el duelo... todos eran tramas muy interesantes para tejer pero no terminan de encajar de ese modo que en otros libros da como resultado una historia redonda.

En mi opinión se queda únicamente en un loable intento.

https://www.micaminoblanco.blogspot.c...

[Aran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irgendwie finde ich es schwer dieses Buch zu bewerten. Zum Teil hätte es 5 Sterne verdient, dann aber auch wieder nicht, weil meine Lesefreude ab der Mitte immer weniger wurde. Ich wollte irgendwann lediglich wissen wie die Geschichte endet. 100-200 Seiten weniger hätten dem Buch gut getan.

[Nancy H]

What a sad but yet amazing story! This is the story of Saba, a girl in Iran, who has lost her sister and her mother, and through her grief has built up elaborate stories about what actually happened to them. She lives with her father, but it is after the religious mullahs have taken over Iran, and life is dangerous for Christians (which they are, but which they have to hide) and especially for women and girls, who can be arrested, beaten, and even killed for no reason in the name of sharia law. It is a mesmerizing tale of what Saba has to do to survive and to have a life, all despite the horrible things that have happened to her.

[Booknblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea
By Dina Nayeri
5 stars
p. 423

I find myself drawn to coming of age tales and I particularly loved Dina Nayeri's novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, which is set in Gilan Province in post -revolutionary Iran. In 1981 young Saba Hafezi loses both her mother and twin sister. She believes that her sister Mahtab and her mother have traveled to America to escape the religious regime. This however, is not everyone's belief and at first there is a bit of a mystery about it.

Saba's father is wealthy and a Christian a fact which he must keep hidden. Because he is raising Saba alone he welcomes the local village people into his home so they can assist him in raising his daughter. Saba in turn becomes best friends with two of the village children, Ponneh, a girl and Reza a boy who both her and Ponneh love. We get to experience life in this village and even gain some insight into there thoughts. While post-revolutionary Iran may not be appealing, life in this village where the people love and support each other is.

As Saba grows she secretly listens to Western music , reads their books and learns English as she hopes to join her mother and sister someday. She even develops stories about what her sister Mahtab is doing in the United States and tells them to the local villagers:

"Before we open the envelope from Harvard, I must be sure you understand. You see, Khanom and Agha Mansoori, this isn't only about education. Mahtab needs a father. Can you imagine how much she must mess Baba? Maybe as much as I miss Maman. But unlike me Mahtab fills the holes in her own heart through the strength of her will. she is clever, and she doesn't sit around and suffer. So as she tears open the envelope, she is imagining herself in the warm, secure arms of Baba Harvard--the world's perfect father, with his deep pockets and endless erudition and mild discipline and visionary philosophy. She turns it over in her hand, examines the Cambridge postmark, runs her fingers over her own address. Its neither thick nor thin. She rips it open, hands shaking and scans. Sadly, I don't have the knowledge to recreate this letter for you, but basically this:

Dear Ms. Hafezi,
Something something...WAITING LIST...Some other hings.
Sincerely,
Harvard College
"Well I don't believe this!" says Khanom Mansoori with a huff. "Who is this Agha Harvard who thinks he can make our Mahtab wait? Soes he know she can chatter all day in English? She must know a thousand big words!"

Saba has comfort and love in her home village and yet she eternally longs for a different life, the one that she imagines that her sister Mahtab is living. There is something so touching about this story, that I couldn't put it down.

Dina Nayeri is an Iranian by birth and she left Iran when she was 10 years old. By writing this novel she was able to recreate what she so loved about the country as well as give the western reader insight into what life was like in the country after the revolution. Because Nayeri hasn't lived in Iran, she did a great deal of research about it and some of the people who helped her with it she was not able to name in the book. I was impressed by her writing and hope to read more from her in the future.

[Mulan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4. 5✨ *

Das perfekte Beispiel dafür, dass ein Buch den Horizont erweitern kann. Hat mich nochmal daran erinnert warum ich so gerne lese🥰

*würde es gerne 5 Sterne geben aber es gab hin und wieder Kapitel aus einer anderen Sicht bzw Erzählung, die mich nicht so gepackt haben wie die Haupthandlung.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Oh this book was really, really good! If you want a book where you only get little bits and pieces along the way until everything comes together in an absolutely fantastic mind-blowing ending, this is the book for you! This is a family story with a dose of family secrets and even a little bit of something verging on magical realism. Saba and Mahtab are sisters, twin sisters. They are utterly and inextricably connected to each other. When Mahtab and their mother leave Iran for America, Saba is left to imagine what their life may or may not be.

The characters in this book are stunning and are ones that I am going to be thinking about for a long time. The chapters are narrated by various characters, which I really liked. Sometimes having a lot of narrators doesn't work for me because I get confused but here the characters are so unique that I had no trouble and really enjoyed seeing things from different angles. The main character of this book, Saba, is so wonderful.I loved Saba. She is a dreamer. She and her sister talk about going to America all the time and are encouraged by their mother who is a little bit of a rebel herself. She wants to think the best of people and the best of her situation even when everything points to the contrary. I absolutely loved following her character as she unravels the mystery of her sister and her mother. I love sister stories but this story has something special with a story of twin sisters. It is so heartbreaking thinking about siblings being separated and the author makes you really feel that pain in this book.

I also really loved the setting of this book. The book takes place in a very turbulent time during Iran's history mostly in the 1980s but stretching beyond that. The author does a really, really good job of making you feel what it must have been like to be both in the big city and small towns of Iran during that time. I loved all of the detail.

The writing in this book was so good. As I mentioned previously, there are a lot of big secrets in this book and I thought the author did a really good job of giving you just enough information to make me want to just read a few more pages to see what was happening. Needless to say, I finished this book rather quickly as I kept wanting to put all of the pieces together! Definitely a good read!

[Regina Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complex and richly layered tale of love, coming of age, and control of one's destiny is set between the breadth of two quotes: "In the privacy of our hearts we love who we choose to love," and "only die for someone who at least has a fever for you."

The novel opens in 1981, when a Christian family of four arrive at the Tehran airport when 11-year old Saba realizes her twin sister is not with them. In a moment of chaos she is sure she witnesses her mother and twin, Mahtob, board a plane to America. Left with her father and two best friends, Saba holds onto the belief that her mother and sister are living in America by mingling traditional Persian storytelling within 30-minute American-type sitcom structures she watches through access on the black market. Her two friends and father indulge the fantasies and the trio mature against the backdrop of a growingly oppressive regime and all, in their own, ways deal with its brutality.

There are so many things to love about this book. Those of you who know me well know I love Khaled Hosseini's work, but get really put out with the constant comparisons to him simply to gain readers' attention. Here the comparison is apropos. They share the same themes, character development, lyrical prose, and, oh yeah, if you love getting your heart ripped out of your chest and stomped on you'll find that here too. Nayeri brings an authentic voice to the narrative, having been born in Iran during the Revolution and fleeing with her family at the age of ten. Students of Persia/Iranian culture and history will recognize the traditional storytelling of their literature throughout the book. If you've read any non-fiction work on Iran during the Revolution times the assumption that American life actually mirrors the popular sitcoms of the day rang true with Saba's stories. As a result, the interspersed chapters of Mahtob's life helped draw Saba has a truly sympathetic character.

Highly recommend the book and look forward to Nayeri's second work. This is one of those books I would have loved to read with someone, as there was much to discuss. I'm sure this will be one of this year's favorites for me.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book but it is long and at some times can be sluggish. It starts out in the summer of 1981 in Iran, two years after the Iranian Revolution. Saba is 11 years old at the time and she is telling the story as she remembers it. Her family is at the Iranian airport with her parents and her twin sister. She remembers that her mother, her sister and she are to fly to the United States and her dad will meet them there later. But from there things get fuzzy in her mind...especially when she realizes that her twin is not with them but with another woman and while Saba goes looking for her, she sees her mother disappear into the airplane door and Saba never sees her or her sister again. This story reappears throughout the book, with new details arising with each telling, until it becomes clearer at the ending of the book what really happened to her mother and sister.

In the meantime, Saba is still in Iran with her father and she of course is there with all the changes that happen in that country...with women losing their rights and the moral police of the Islamic Republic making life miserable for all women. Many of the women in this novel are secretly involved as activists in the underground Iranian Women's Rights Movement. Saba learns of this at a certain point as she grows up but also still clings to this alternate life she envisions for herself of being able to travel and live in the United States.

An interesting "coming of age" story in another country. Would recommend it...just continue plugging through the parts where you want to walk away from it...it's worth a read.

[Olivermagnus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea begins in 1980's Iran and tells the story of twins Saba and Mahtab. Both girls are obsessed with all things American, and dream of a day when their family will immigrate there. After Mahtab and her mother mysteriously disappear, eleven year old Saba is convinced that they have moved to America without her. As she grows up in Iran with her father, Saba imagines Mahtab’s life unfolding parallel to hers in America, while Saba makes her way through life in post-revolutionary Iran.

Saba's father is a wealthy Christian merchant who is viewed suspiciously by the Muslim villagers. Saba has two best friends, Reza and Ponneh, who provide a "teenage" viewpoint of the time. There are also three mother-figures that provide more information about events as she grows.

My only real complaint is that I didn't enjoy the long passages of Mahtab's life in America. The reader is never sure of what actually happened to her and Saba's mother until the end of the book and I was never as invested in her life in America.

I thought the writing was very lyrical. The author did a wonderful job at creating the atmosphere of a small town, the people, and the culture. I enjoyed learning about Saba's life, her struggles in her marriage, her attempts to better her life and take charge of her own destiny, as well as the rigid laws that have been forced on the Iranian women. It was a fascinating and intricate story and I definitely recommend it to readers who hope to learn more about the Middle East.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saba grows up in an Iranian village in the late 80's in a wealthy (and secretly) Christian family. Protected from much of the world around her and taught early on about Western ways, she leads a life that is both wonderful and terrible.

After the loss of her sister and mother, Saba imagines their lives in the United States. The book does a lovely job of following Saba through young adulthood, dealing with adolescence and rebellion, all the way to questions of marriage and potentially dangerous feminism. At the same time, Saba considers her own milestones through the parallel life she imagines her twin sister having in the United States.

It's a brilliant device, and uses Saba's imagination and the culture of Iranian storytelling to contrast such different ways of life.

Saba is not a perfect heroine and you also get the opportunity to see her from outside as various mother-figures in her life comment on her as she grows, providing a view of this rare girl who stands out so much from the traditions of her village.

Besides PERSEPOLIS, this is the first Iranian fiction I've read (though technically the author is Iranian-American) and I really enjoyed it.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri is an exquisitely told story of Saba Hafezi‘s life and the life she imagines for her lost twin sister Mahtab. When the girls were 11-years-old, Manteb, and their mother vanished leaving Saba to be raised by her father in Iran. Saba is convinced her mother and sister fled to America, the place she and her twin longed dreamed of moving to. A Teaspoon of Earth and see is vividly descriptive with realistic characters that the reader cannot help but care for and in many instances root for. I found myself mesmerized at times by Nayeri’s prose and I enjoyed reading the various points of views as well as the story alternating in brief flashbacks as Nayeri takes the reader from 1980s Iran, through the cultural revolution, and ultimately to the United States. Nayeri is an exceptional storyteller and she truly captures the essence of just how far one’s mind can go to protect itself. I would strongly recommend A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea to readers and book groups alike.